sandcastle

Attended a PD this week called Koorie Conversations, hosted by Dare to Lead. Wonderful. Enlightening. We were served with a smorgasbord of highlights that included

• Koorie speakers sharing personal stories
• Indigenous heritage & struggles
• Education & the future
• Resources for schools & communities

The audience of educators was challenged in relation to

• What we are doing in our schools & communities
• The legacy our schools will leave to the children in our care, both indigenous & non-indigenous

The day was outstanding – informative & inspiring. A small group of schools was also represented that spoke about their own innovative programs. These were fantastic – acknowledging, considering and celebrating our indigenous heritage and the riches it has to offer the holistic education of all young people in our schools. We left at the end of a full and enriching day challenged and inspired. The next step for many of us will be to find ways for so much of our rhetoric to be matched by actions!

So my Year 8 students came with many interesting and creative questions that could be carried out by Amy Rogers as she takes up the challenge of her Antarctic adventure in November. We vetted our list and finally came up with four questions to explore. We sent off three detailed experiments that Amy might choose to do while there. The nature of the fourth question meant it couldn’t practically be undertaken, but it was a great question, I couldn’t just leave it out altogether. So I’ve turned it into a new form of homework for the whole family, called Dinner Table Science! I told my students that they could share the pain of homework with their entire family at the dinner table, and that they should work as a team to explore ways of finding an answer to the question. The question is:

Would lava erupting from Mt. Erebus in Antarctica melt the surrounding ice or would the ice freeze the lava?

So I’ll see next week what creative problem-solving they’ve managed.